Finding my feet again...

This time a proper title. Hopefully the article will be decent as well. I am willing to talk about ways of turning around bad form. Many FM-ers have good and potentially great, but they tend to run away from it, because they think they entered a maze with no exists, when the team they are managing hits a bad form. Screw that! Imagine how boring would the game be, if your team would always play great football. Winning is what makes us enjoy the game, but there is no such feeling as getting back on track and handling a hard situation. First wanted to do a list of things players should do, but decided to just write without pretending o know the exact formula and maybe people will get something out of the things I am trying to share.

First of all, sticking around in bad times is the most important thing you need to learn. Nothing is lost until the board threatens you to sack you, or when they actually do so. You can become fans favourite after receiving the dreaded vote of confidence as well! If you have ambitions of conquering the World, you need to understand that the pathway to the top is filled with trials and disappointments. Sure, there will be times when you think it's not worth it, but it is! Show that you have character and don't resign or even worse, start a new game at the first couple of matches without winning actual points. Just don't.

Ever been told to kiss? Too kiss, kiss, kiss when the sun goes down? No, I am not talking about mouth to mouth action, it is rather something which you can use when hitting a bad form. Keep it simple Stupid! There is a chance that your tactic may be getting a bit rusty and it doesn't take a genius to figure it out. You may have had a good season with it, but good things never last forever. Many are finding it pretty easy to find this out, but they often make the mistake of creating something equally complicated as the previous one. In this case, you must expect at least another few games of very bad form. There are loads of ways of creating a decent tactic, so it will probably work in the long run. Before getting the sack? Maybe, maybe not.. My advice is to start using a standard tactic and build from that. Pick a standard 4-4-2 and see how players do in certain positions. This will help you take a better look at your players and will give you the opportunity to create a tactic based around your team. Your Right winger has a good movement but he is failing to deliver the crosses? Set his crosses to rarely and make him run as much as he can with the ball..

Your Striker is not performing in the expected way? Bench him for the next couple of games and use someone else. People need to understand that a star player who is in a very bad form is by no means better than a lesser known, even worse player, who is in a good form. Sometimes traditional back-up players can become the stars. Some of them can really show you that they are worthy of your faith by delivering the goods in crucial times, or in times when other people just can't perform. From this you can gain quite a lot. For example, maybe a top club can get his eyes on a reserve of yours and you can get a lot of money of a fringe player. Many teams buy players on form, you might as well get the best out of it. On other occasions, you can find out that the player you always considered to be a reserve can very well play at the highest level and you will never need to use your big and shiny star again.

Another one of my advices is being as consistent as possible on the pitch and in every aspect of man management. You may think that this is contradicting my other sayings, but I hope you will find that it does not. When it comes to tactics, change it, but don't keep changing it over and over again. Start using another one, a simple one, but don't try out a 3rd one, if you are not getting the expected results. Tweak it until it will completely suit your team and your playing style. I also said that you should change key members in your first team. Yes you should, but make sure you don't massively alter your starting 11 match by match. If you have voted faith for a player, don't get it away from him after 1 bad performance. Maybe try other things with him and get him out from his comfortable starting chair only after that. Consistency can be something to produce great achievements, but it's a very complex term. You can offer it in more than one way. Don't alter teams, use rotation only when needed and make sure you don't use a tactic a game. Frequently altering the squad status of a certain player is also bad. You shouldn't have more than 5-6 key players, and 7-8 first teamers.

Another subject that we touched, yet didn't really discuss until this point is the importance of morale amongst your players. By morale I don't necessarily mean one thing, it is more a mixture of squad harmony, individual morale and relation between your players. I have no intention of discussing it massively in this guide, as I am wanting to write a separate piece about morale and it's importance, so I am just going to give you a couple of things on how to restore the good spirit between members of your squad. Praising and being less harsh with criticism is a good start. No one wants to hear how bad he is, but everyone can give even more on the pitch, when he knows he is appreciated. Make sure you don't start praising players playing for other teams, playing in their position. Don't declare interest in players playing for your rivals. Try to be as conservative as possible in press conferences, don't go over the top with your comments. Offer your players new contracts, if you see signs of them wanting an improved one, or even if you consider them to be key figures and massively under-paid.

Hope I helped. If not, then at least I tried. Criticism is always welcome and please discuss anything related to this article in the article's LW thread, or right here on SI games..

Sorry, don't know what happened with the title.. Can you just please rename it to "Finding my feet again..", please?

Im slightly confused about the point of this thread, is it just to advertise your forum?

Im slightly confused about the point of this thread, is it just to advertise your forum?

Well, it's an article about getting back on track when you are experiencing bad form. I just added a link to LW as well.

Why, is it that bad that you can't tell it's some kind of a guide?

Well, it's an article about getting back on track when you are experiencing bad form. I just added a link to LW as well.

Why, is it that bad that you can't tell it's some kind of a guide?

It didnt really offer any particular guidance as such, just puts into words the things you would do / consider with use of common sense.

It is not written in anywhere near enough depth of insight, or structured in a way that makes it obvious that it is supposed to be a guide, but obviously that is only my opinion, someone else may find it useful!

Good post

It didnt really offer any particular guidance as such, just puts into words the things you would do / consider with use of common sense.

It is not written in anywhere near enough depth of insight, or structured in a way that makes it obvious that it is supposed to be a guide, but obviously that is only my opinion, someone else may find it useful!

If a guide is not about words from the author about things he would do in a certain situation, then what is it?

Criticism is welcome though. I am sorry if you didn't like it, hope my next one will be slightly better.

Good post

From me or Rick?

If a guide is not about words from the author about things he would do in a certain situation, then what is it?

Criticism is welcome though. I am sorry if you didn't like it, hope my next one will be slightly better.

From me or Rick?

Simply advice;)

Simply advice;)

Well I did advice people to do certain things, didn't I?

Well I did advice people to do certain things, didn't I?

But advice isn't a guide.

Facts and directions are guides, advice is just what the advisors would do, it's their opinion, and not necessarily the right way to go about things.

But advice isn't a guide.

Facts and directions are guides, advice is just what the advisors would do, it's their opinion, and not necessarily the right way to go about things.

Well, I think I have talked about almost everything regarding the subject, so I will call it a guide. It is totally up to you though and I am glad I am getting any kind of comments, even if it is criticism.